Lately, I’ve been spending time in the evenings listening to tracker tunes on my Gravis Ultrasound-equipped 486 PC. My go-to player program is Open CubicPlayer for DOS, which does a great job of both accurate playback and adjusting and sorting samples to work as well as possible within the GUS’s 1MB of wavetable RAM.
Now, of course I like das blinkenlights (as one does), and OCP offers a number of satisfying ways to light up the phosphor during MOD, S3M, IT, and XM playback. Recently, however, I spotted a free-standing LED VU Meter on the web that looked like it might be a welcome addition to my tracker player setup down in the Byte Cellar.
The unit is available from a variety of sources scattered across the globe, each of which seems to refer to the device by a different name while offering it at a different price. Digging around a bit, I have come to the conclusion that the actual name / description of this thing is something close to: “D’ESIGN R12 Rhythm Lights Voice Activated RGB Music Light LED w/ Pseudo Tubes.” Whew. It’s about 3.25-inches tall; 11-inches wide; has 12 LED bars, each in a tube with a mesh in front of it for a nixie-tube sort of look, all in a nice wooden frame; has a variety of color and display modes; and picks up on sounds in the room as input for its VU meter display. After initially seeing it offered at a higher price, I found it elsewhere for about $90 USD.
And, I love it! I have it sitting on top of the Tandy 1000HX, just down the desk from the aforementioned 486 (it’s an AMD 5×86 160, actually), and it adds enormously to the overall vibe of the room (which I wrote about in my last blog post) while listening to these tracks and watching demos. I usually run with the green fading-up-to-orange color scheme, as it reminds me of the bars in the original Soundtracker that I spent hours in on my old Amiga 2000, way back when.
The video above consists of a few quick and dirty clips I took with my iPhone to give a feel for the setup in action — forgive the crudeness. It’s an amazing little device that is really giving me my money’s worth as far as the enjoyment it brings me during tracker time. And, I kind-of want a second one….
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The combination of a GUS-equipped 486, Cubic Player, and a glowing LED VU meter sounds like peak DOS tracker nostalgia. I especially like the idea of visualizing MOD, S3M, IT, and XM playback with real phosphor-friendly blinkenlights.
A glowing VU meter is a perfect companion to a 486 running tracker tunes—especially with a GUS squeezing MOD, S3M, IT, and XM playback into that 1MB wavetable RAM. I love the idea of turning the phosphor glow into something that follows the music rather than just watching the player screen.
The combination of a 486, GUS wavetable playback, and a glowing VU meter is peak tracker-era atmosphere. I especially like that the meter adds another visual layer to MOD/S3M/IT/XM playback without getting in the way of the carefully managed 1MB wavetable RAM.
A glowing VU meter feels like the perfect upgrade for tracker sessions on a GUS-equipped 486, especially with MOD, S3M, IT, and XM playback. I love that it adds another layer of “das blinkenlights” without distracting from the careful 1MB wavetable-RAM constraints.
thanks for sharing
A glowing VU meter feels like the perfect upgrade for a 486 tracker setup—especially alongside a GUS carefully squeezing MOD, S3M, IT, and XM playback into 1MB of wavetable RAM. The extra blinkenlights should make those evening sessions wonderfully excessive.
A glowing VU meter is a perfect upgrade for a 486 tracker setup—especially alongside accurate DOS playback and the GUS’s carefully managed 1MB wavetable RAM. It adds exactly the right kind of blinkenlights without distracting from the MOD and S3M nostalgia.
Those glowing VU meters seem like a perfect match for tracker playback on a 486, especially alongside a GUS pushing MOD, S3M, IT, and XM files. I love the idea of turning the 1MB wavetable RAM and phosphor glow into part of the listening experience.